Runavik, Faroe Islands

 In Sept 2026 my cruise ship stopped at Runavik in the Faroe Islands. On previous cruises I had been to Torshavn and Klaksvik, so it was nice to stop at a place new to me. 

The Faroe Islands are a series of volcanic islands between Norway, Scotland and Iceland in the North Atlantic. They are self-governing but part of the Kingdom of Denmark.

Runavik is on the southern end of the island Eysturoy, which is the second largest of the Faroe islands. It is close to the sea end of Skalafjordur fjord. The western side of the fjord at 7.15 am and a church on the eastern side -

The white "hoops" visible above the water line mark the entrance to one of the many road tunnels -

Another road tunnel entrance -

There was no local bus that coincided with our visit on a Sunday, so I decided to explore the place on foot. At various points around the town, young locals were available to help with any questions -

I walked through the town, there are various displays of old boats and info about the fishing industry 

I set off for Toftavatn, the 4th largest natural lake in the Faroes. A Muscovy duck -

Note all the white in the grass, this is cotton grass, Eriophorum, from the sedge family -

A small part of the lake. The path only goes around this section and crosses the lake by a causeway as can be seen in the above map. I did a clockwise route.

Peat -

View from across the causeway -

I decided to walk up the hill towards Toftir as there were some interesting rocks up on a small cliff -

Walking through the village I was surprised to see some houses had turf roofs -

It was a very pleasant walk. I had started out wearing several layers, with hat, scarf and gloves, but by the time I reached the top of the hill I had removed several items. The sun was lovely and the weather just perfect.

A view of Toftir and the hill I had walked over, taken from the ship as we were sailing out -

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See my 2022 blog on turf houses .

High Salvington windmill, Sussex

High Salvington windmill is located on a hill outside Worthing, West Sussex. The hill is west of the Findon Valley and the hill on the other side of the valley is where Cissbury Ring is located.

The windmill is a post mill, built around 1756. It ceased working in 1897. After Worthing council bought it to save it as an example of a Sussex post mill, in 1976 a restoration trust began to restore it to full working order. Now all the machinery has been reinstalled and stone-ground flour is milled regularly. 

The black mill is quite an impressive site. Currently 2 of the sails are being restored.

It is the first post mill I have visited, as all the others around the London area have been tower aka smock mills.  The day I went there was also a craft fair so the place was quite busy.

These photos show the entrance with the stairs. The long white beam is used for turning the mill -

The ground floor section is called the roundhouse. We then went up the stairs to the main workings of the mill. The huge oak post -

In a post mill, the whole body of the mill turns around the central post. This post is supported by four quarter bars in the roundhouse.

The 3 m diameter brake wheel with 136 teeth -

This is a replica of the Glynde Wind Pump. lt is a restored, small hollow post-mill wind pump originally rescued from Glynde in 1988. It is modeled after a design used to pump water from trenches in northern France during the First World War. In Sussex it was probably used to irrigate fields.

The mill is open for tours on 2 Sundays a month from April to September.

See the website of High Salvington windmill.

See more on Wikipedia post mills and on the Sussex mills group. 

Partial solar eclipse Aug 2026

On the evening of 12 August 2026 there was a partial solar eclipse, amounting to about 95% in the UK. Full coverage was seen in Spain and Iceland. 

In this eclipse the sun was covered by the moon. It was the fullest solar eclipse visible from the UK and Ireland since 1999 (which I missed).

I watched it from Worthing pier in West Sussex, on the south coast of England. Luckily I still had some solar eclipse glasses from an eclipse on 29 March 2025. This was a partial solar eclipse and I was on a cruise ship, sailing north from the Azores to UK. It had been too cloudy to see the sun.

In Worthing, the eclipse began at about 6.18pm and reached its maximum at 7.14pm, lasting around one hour and 49 minutes in total. There had been so much build up in the media, including how it would get dark and go quiet and the birds stop singing and go to bed. In reality it didn't get very dark as the coverage was not total. But it did get noticeably cooler, especially was England was in its 5th heatwave of the summer.

I took the photos on my phone, so they are not good, but are better than nothing!

Some penguin poses

 I still have very fond memories of my day spent in the Falklands in 2023, when I went to see the penguins. See my blog post.

Since then, whilst looking at the photos, I had a silly moment giving captions to some of the penguins -

hen pecked husband and nagging wife

Gentoo on a mission

worn out

synchronized surfing

the 4 tenors rehearse

mothers meeting

waiting for the show to start

neck exercises